


"This Whole Adonis Vibe"

by dietgay



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: HS!AU, Multi, basically this hc on @falsettolandhigh (me) that i decided to write out, mind the horrible characterization of trina's mom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 20:42:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12779127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dietgay/pseuds/dietgay
Summary: I did a thing! I wrote a thing!Without any further ado, here's the Trindel origin story. ;)





	"This Whole Adonis Vibe"

**Author's Note:**

> I did a thing! I wrote a thing!
> 
> Without any further ado, here's the Trindel origin story. ;)

Mendel envisions the moment perfectly: Trina would open the window, her hair perfectly curled and flowing and long, her face bright and smiling, her eyes twinkling when she saw him outside sitting on the lawn. He imagines her propping her head in her hands on the windowsill while he serenades her with a mind-blowing ukulele love anthem.

It’s perfect, he thought. She’s perfect.

So there he sits, at approximately two in the morning, legs criss-crossed on Trina’s front lawn. Small pebbles fill his messenger bag to the brim, and his ukulele lays in its case on the soft grass. Shit, his ass is going to get so wet because of the damn wet cold soft grass. But no, the moment is going to be perfect. All he needs to do was grow the balls to throw the first stone. 

\---

Trina picks him up from Casa de la Weisenbachfeld around seven. Mendel has gotten around, say, thirty minutes of sleep. Tuesday night, what was he thinking? He should’ve remembered that he had school the next day. He should’ve remembered she did. He couldn’t work up enough courage to actually do anything, so he sat outside on her lawn until four A.M. and reluctantly dragged himself back home. 

She texts him “I’m here!” before Mendel has the chance to make a pot of coffee. In any futile attempt to stay awake, he sprints down the stairs with his backpack on. If he didn’t need to see a chiropractor before, he definitely does now.

“What the fuck happened to you?” she asks as he unloads his shit--cheer bag, backpack, ukulele case, rock sack, which he doesn’t know why he keeps with him--in the back seat of her car. Boy, he is in love. 

Mendel, not the best at the whole “excuses” thing, rasps out the safest thing he could think of. “I was studying for finals. Long night.”

Trina nods in sure confusion. “It’s October, honey. Try that one again.” A little pause. “Okay, you’re really tired. It’s alright; I don’t have to know why you were up all night. It’s not like we’re dating or anything.”

See, that’s the problem, Mendel thinks. We’re not dating or anything. But God, he’s too tired to say anything witty or punny in response. The dad-joke cortex in his brain shut down from lack of sleep.

“It’s okay. I didn’t sleep too well either. Let’s get some caffeine in our blood.” The aunts would never approve of Mendel having any caffeine, but, well, these are special circumstances. The potential love of his life is offering, and he is practically dead inside. Fuck “hyperactivity.”  
Trina pulls into the nearest convenience store, says “Wait here,” and rushes off into the abyss, leaving Mendel sitting by himself. In her car. She turns around and flashes a sweet smile in his direction once she gets to the door. Boy, he is in love. 

In the short few minutes she’s gone, Mendel starts going through all the reasons he’s head over heels for Trina. He does this with every person he says he has a crush on, just to make sure he likes them. His aunts made him do this starting back in middle school when he would come home with a new crush every week. “If you can’t find three good reasons you like them,” Auntie Karen told him, “throw them back.” He got rid of a lot of trouble that way.

Trina is the most talented person he’s ever met. He doesn’t know how he got so lucky to call her his best friend. He brags so much about her because she’s so deserving of it.  
Trina has the best soul. Her intentions are always golden. Case and point: she’s currently buying him a drink to wake him up after a long night of she knows not what.  
Trina cares about him. She always asks about his day, makes sure his homework isn’t overwhelming him, and helps him before he even asks. She is an actual goddess.

He’s still thinking about her when the car door slams shut. “Hey, I only had three bucks in cash on me, so I just got one. You okay with sharing?” She holds out a purple Monster energy drink. Mendel nods as enthusiastically as he can with his limited energy. “I got that industrial grade shit,” she says as she pops the lid. “This one’s my favorite. It’s not grape, but-- I’m gonna be honest, I don’t know what fucking flavor it is, but it’s delicious. It tastes like straight artificial bullshit, and it’ll wake you up. I promise.”

“I’ll pay you back tomorrow,” Mendel says. “I promise.”

“Oh, don’t you dare. You’d do the same for me.”

“Would I, though?”

“I like to think you would.” She smiles in the rearview, puts her sunglasses on, and drives off. 

When they arrive at school, they split up, as per the usual. She goes off to find Cordelia and Whizzer, and Mendel runs over to Charlotte and Marvin. Mr. Norris has started holding morning quiz bowl practices for the A Team--they need to get stronger somehow, and there’s no way they’re doing it at afternoon practices--and no one outside of the team is allowed to join. Besides, the drama club has just started blocking for the fall show, and Whizzer needs all the help he can get. That’s why he and the girls take over the auditorium most mornings. He’s got the voice of an angel but two left feet. It’s a Jewish miracle he’s so good at baseball. 

Mendel shoves through the crowd of kids walking the opposite way on the boardwalk trying to get to their spot on the sixth wing. He pushes open the door and walks to Mr. Norris’s room, nearly out of breath. Four bags (one of which is filled with literal rocks), a long walk, and a tired kid don’t mix well. All Mendel knows to do is thank God he doesn’t have to climb the stairs first thing in the morning.

Mr. Norris’s room is unlocked like always, but neither he or Marvin are anywhere to be found. Charlotte’s already in her seat, playing some new game on her phone. She’s kind of a noncommittal, so it’s a different game every time. She looks up at Mendel when the door shuts and smiles at him. She’s definitely been left alone for too long. 

“Where’s Mr. Norris?” he asks.

“So,” Charlotte starts, completely ignoring his question. 

“So?”

“How’d it go?” She jumps up from her seat and runs over to Mendel, punching him in the arm. She’s definitely been left alone for too long.

“How’d what go?”

The gaze of death she gives him could melt steel. “You didn’t do it, did you?” She frowns. Oh, that thing. “Jesus, just ask the girl out already. You love her.”

“Speak for yourself.” Charlotte is head over heels for Cordelia, and everyone on this side of the Atlantic knows it. It’s not like Mendel hasn’t caught her scribbling “C + C” in the margins of her chemistry notes on more than one occasion. She tells Mendel every day that she’s about to ask her out, but every day she chickens out and remains hopelessly in love. 

“Good point, but my situation’s different. You know for a fact that Trina likes you.” Oh yeah, there is a minor hiccup in Mendel’s rationale: Trina is undeniably straight. Cordelia, however, isn’t openly gay, so it’s more of a crapshoot for Charlotte. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s fallen for a straight girl. “Here, I’ll offer you a deal. I ask Cordelia to homecoming tonight after cheer practice, and you ask Trina using whatever method you see fit. You still planning on that Romeo and Juliet pebbles-at-the-window bullshit?” 

“Yeah, sounds like a deal. Blood pact?”

“No blood pact, man. You know how many diseases you could get from that? If one of us had AIDS or something, consider the other one dead. Let’s just shake on it.”

Challenge accepted. 

\---

For the second night in a row, Mendel sits in Trina’s front yard. If Miss Rebecca Meyer across the street notices him sitting there again, she’s probably going to call the cops. His ukulele’s lying on the grass (again), the grass is wet (again), and it’s 2:00 A.M. (again). Wait, he thinks, checking his phone again. 2:09. There’s something new this time, however. Next to the ukulele and bag of pebbles he has a bouquet of red roses. Marvin hinted at lunch that Trina loves red roses. 

Now which window is Trina’s? Mendel has been over to her house more than once, but he can’t remember where her room is for the life of him. In his vision, Trina opens the second window from the right, but he swears that behind the curtain, he can make out the silhouette of a refrigerator. 

Ah, what the fuck. He takes a stone out of his bag, fiddles it around in his palm so he can get used to it, and tosses it at the third window from the right. This has got to be hers even though there’s no logical basis to back him up. The stone makes a tink sound and bounces off the window, falling to the ground. 

The next pebble. Tink. 

Tink. 

Tink. 

Nothing. No lamp switching on, no sound of the windows unlatching. Mendel’s not even sure he’s not aiming at the bathroom. He’s just about to give up and shuffle home, waiting until tomorrow. Maybe his dreams just aren’t what he envisioned. 

Maybe I’m just not throwing it hard enough. He pulls one last pebble out of his bag, warms it in his fist, and hurls it at what might be Trina’s window. He waits for the signature tink, but it doesn’t come. Instead, the window shatters, replacing the tink with a crack! 

Almost immediately following the window incident, Trina lets out an ear-rupturing screech. Shit, now I’ve done it. Mendel runs to the window and sticks his head in, making sure not to accidentally slit his throat on the glass. That would be a perfectly ironic ending to a horrible story such as this. 

“Trina, it’s me,” he whispers. “It’s Mendel. I’m really sorry! Just let me explain.”

Trina, who had hidden her head from intruders underneath the duvet, looks out and sees a nervously smiling Mendel peeking through the remnants of her bedroom window. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” she whispers aggressively. “I thought you were going to rape me or something!”

Mendel rubs the back of his neck and chuckles. “Well, the plan was a little more romantic than that. I was going to s--”

Trina’s mother kicks down the bedroom door with baseball bat in hand. She switches the lights on, stopping in shock to register the scene in front of her. Mendel blushes a bright shade of firetruck. “Mendel, what the hell are you doing here?” she asks, laying down the bat. “It’s two in the morning!”

“Yes, uh, hello, Mrs. Houser. I promise I will pay for the window out of my own pocket.” He trips over his own words, unable to form coherent sentences. “Well, I just wanted to--” Now or never, Mendel. Suddenly he gains an unparalleled burst of confidence sitting in that window. A bold smile crosses his face as he says, “I was going to ask your daughter to homecoming, but as you can see, we’re in the middle of a predicament here. You see, I like Trina very, very much.” 

In his peripheral, he can see Trina grinning ear to ear. 

“I was going for this whole Adonis vibe, but I’m obviously no Adonis. This situation is pretty much the most Mendel you can get. I was going to serenade her with this love song on the ukulele, which is on the front lawn. Oh, I also have these!” 

He dashes from the window and returns with the bouquet of red roses, which is in significantly worse shape than it was prior to shattering the window. “I may have stepped on them running up here to see if you were okay, Trin. But here. This is basically what I have to offer. It’s not what I planned, but can I go to homecoming with you, Trina?”

Both kids stare at Mrs. Houser, whose face hasn’t budged throughout his monologue. “Trina,” she starts, her voice stern and unwavering. Mendel knows at this very moment that he has royally fucked up. 

“Yes, Mom?” She glances down at her duvet, twiddling the sheets between her fingers. On her face is a weak half-smile at Mendel’s attempt at romance. Of course this would be how he tried to win her over. 

“If Marvin would have tried half as hard as Mendel did just now, I would’ve arranged your marriage already. This kid likes you a lot. I’m going to leave and get the broom to deal with this, but please go with him.” And with that, she leaves the room. 

“Of course I’m going with you, asshole. I’d run to the window and kiss you, but there’s broken glass all over the floor and I’m barefoot. Just throw me the roses.”

\---

Trina walks with Mendel to Mr. Norris’s room the next day, her hand in his. Charlotte has her arm around Cordelia--a real shocker for the both of them. Marvin and Whizzer are digging through Mr. Norris’s desk drawers. 

“I said a three-hole punch, dipshit. Not a stapler,” Whizzer complains, shoving Marvin to the floor. “Let me do it. Jesus fucking Christ.”

From his position on the ground, Marvin sees Trina’s and Mendel’s shoes. “Whizzer, he did it!”

“You’re fucking joking.” Whizzer lifts his head above the desk, smiling at the new happy couple. “You’re fucking joking! Ten bucks says Trina, you asked him.” 

Charlotte laughs to herself. “I’ll take you up on that bet,” she says, winking at Mendel. 

“Actually,” Trina begins with a huge, reminiscent smile plastered on her face, “Mendel asked me. And I said yes. So cough it up, bitch.” She turns to the lesbians, who are getting rich off of Whizzer’s misplaced confidence. “Del, how’d Charlotte win you over?”

“Tire blew out!” she says with a laugh. “It turns out that dancing in the street to ABBA in the middle of the night is the perfect way to score a date. You?”

“He broke a window.”

“Marv, why can’t we be this interesting?” Whizzer whines, finally emerging from behind the desk with the three-hole punch. “Hey, pass me those affidavits.” He takes them out of Marvin’s hand and punches them, putting them in Mr. Norris’s mock trial binder. “Thanks, babe. Does that mean all of us are dating now?”

“Nice,” Charlotte says. 

“Nice,” Mendel says, squeezing Trina’s hand. 

“Nice,” Trina says, squeezing back.

**Author's Note:**

> Yo, you should follow me on Tumblr for some quality content!
> 
> Blogs where you can find more of this AU:  
> @falsettolandhigh  
> @ask-falsettolandhigh
> 
> Another fan blog I have that posts infrequently:  
> @theamericanidiom (it's a hedwig reference!)


End file.
